Global land rush has complex consequences

Over the last decade, the fear of ‘land grabbing’ in developing countries has mobilized scholars and activists across the world. Books, articles and reports have been published on an unprecedented scale. However, as this DIIS Impact by Rasmus Hundsbæk-Pedersen and Lars Buur describes, many of the reported investments by foreign investors have turned out to be perfectly voluntary or never materialised.

Many land grab analyses were imprecise or misguided. What does this mean for the policy initiatives that were designed to curb land grabbing? The authors argue that more context-specific analyses and policy initiatives are required.